Gordon Brown in Kirkcaldy

So, Gordon Brown visited Kirkcaldy today.
The town he grew up in.
So he's not going to be convinced by:
the shiny shiny litter free streets
the jolly happy people
the spirit of joy captured by the marching band

But still, nice to make the effort. Security at its finest: bin bags over bins. Without meaning to be picky, could a potential assassin/terrorist wanting to place a device in a bin possibly overcome a binbag? Maybe not. Maybe if they see a bin bag over a bin they move onto the next one, then the next one, then the next one, then get narked and give up the whole idea and have a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread instead. Maybe.

There was much muttering of "last time you'll see him as PM".

Yes, because the people of Kirkcaldy are really going to vote for anyone else. The last tory vote in Kirkcaldy was recorded in 1765.

The choices of the candidates will be:

Sonny Somebody from the Liberals.
Thingy Smugbutquite-Scared from the Tories
GORDON BROWN, your local Prime Minister
Weirdy Funny Party Candidate from a party that you've never heard of
You wouldn't sleep if you voted for the BNP candidate
Oh that one. What's UKIP all about again?
ISN'T SCOTLAND NICE?? Scottish McScot from the Lovely SNP.

So, two candidates have a fighting chance, and 90% of the voters (aka 16% of the entitled to vote population) just trog on down and stamp their X next to Labour Regardless.

I know who I want as PM, and it annoys the HELL out of me that if I can't just vote for him. No, I can vote for a candidate, and if he/she doesn't win this seat, my vote counts for NOTHING.

Bah.

I am sorry to say that if I had bumped into Snr Brown in Kirkcaldy today, my actions would have been sycophantic. And I may have told a big fib. But I didn't bump into him.

Dangerous topic

I have learned not to ever express any opinion whatsoever on the topic of politics. People never agree, whatever you say, always decide your loyalties lie somewhere iffy and it's all generally more hassle than it's worth.

So. Here goes. Misunderstand at will.

This upcoming election. Where I live, which so happens to be Gordon Brown's constituency, is pretty much Labour's safest seat. So the result here is a given, unless the people that never vote get off their ample posteriors and vote, in which case a glorious victory for Liberal/SNP would knock the world off its axis.

But as to most other places, the dedicated media hatred for Mr Brown would seem to have stamped home a message that it would not be A Good Thing if Labour were to stay in.
Which generally means the other guys get in. The other guys in this case being the Tories and *we* would bag ourselves a Tory government, who would presumably implement Tory policies.

Tory may not all be "Tory", and all Tories don't share the same views (bigoted, in other words) but they're still Tory, so they'll be Tory. No? They're not secretly Tory, they're perfectly willing to admit they're Tory, they are presenting themselves as the Tory Party.

Which all appears to be stating the obvious, and displaying excessive usage of the word "Tory" (Conservative way too long to type 56 times) but to be frank, it's a bit tedious that the shouty types don't occasionally think of the future, rather than shouting a lot about what's in existence, voting it out and shouting equally about its replacement. After the joyous ejection of the current hated ones and the deification of the incomers, the faults of the new guys - generally being what they are and doing what they are expected to do - just goes round and round in one boring circle and the beloved get the blame (for whatever happens at the time that whoever is in charge just bumble their way through) and become the devil's minions.

So, having grown up hearing all the shouty types shouting about the "terrible, terrible, awful pure dead evil" things that the previous Tory government did, it's a bit galling to look forward to the shouty types shouting about how much they hate any future Tory policies that would be unleashed on the public that appear poised to vote them in.

But what do I know? I've never been effectively brainwashed.

Ignorance

That's my ignorance I refer to by the way. Just in case anyone hasn't got the time to read past the first line and wants to decide I'm mocking someone else.

I'm reading this book just now, called "Who Runs Britain... and who's to blame for the economic mess we're in" by Robert Peston. I would like to know the answer to this question, hence the purchasing of the book. I am on page 5, due to courseworks and what not, so I'm not all that in a position to judge.

But I can judge myself. And I'm off on a talk-about-myself thing, I do apologise. Blame Chandler.

I'm back to this whole "I don't know what I think" thing. I make a crap anarchist, because if someone's in charge, I get all meek and think "ooh, how exciting, he's in charge, how very assertive". (if it's a he; if it's a she then I think, ooh she's not very pretty, no wonder she went into politics). I like being told what to do. Within reason. If I kind of wanted to do it anyway.

I want to be told to do the things I want to have the freedom to decide that I want to do. On the fence a bit on that one.

Libertarian: make your own decisions. Nope. Too much responsibility. No thanks.
Fascist: force me to do things I don't want to do. No thanks.

Next?

Right's bad, right? So why does David Cameron make so much sense? Is he from the shiny happy wing that like social cohesion and want to join Europe? Does that really exist?

And why does Boris Johnson make so little sense? No, Boris, don't listen to the people, they don't know what they're talking about... oh you did it anyway. Never mind. "We love you because you bumble". No. No bumbling. Be assertive.

Nick Clegg's nice. He always says nice things. Very nice. Totally harmless. Being nice. I just looked to see if there was anything not-nice about him and the worst I could find was that he'd said he'd slept with no more than 30 women. Oh, really. How terrible. Obviously we all want virginal politicians that bumble. Anyway, I likes him: can promise the moon on a stick as will never have to provide, thus promises little pretend moons on matchsticks because that's rather nice.

I have no idea what Gordon Brown says about anything because I think he has a nice voice and immediately switch off. It's not intentional, I find him very boring. He's a lovely MP, he writes occasionally about how much he wants to improve Kirkcaldy and is often seen at the Rovers, but yawwwwwnnn. Oh, you did what? We spent how much? And you're not... ok. Alistair Darling, similar problem, I watch his eyebrows and the words wash over me. I can't remember who the rest of them are, those government types, boring people that drivel on. I like some of what they say, I'm kind of annoyed about the whole war/economy thing, I don't really care about them. VAT, woop, I've saved about 10p this week, I appear to mostly buy VAT free goods anyway. I buy a wodge of things, look at the receipt, Total bill: £45.97 VAT saving: £0.02. Oh wow! Really? Every little 2p adds up. If I start buying stuff I don't normally. Biscuits. I need more biscuits in my life just to appreciate the VAT decrease.

So, as demonstrated, I'm a bit clueless.

And back to the book...

I was slightly dubious as he's from the BBC and they might just possibly be a teeny bit biased against the government, but hey, no conclusions jumping. But he's not really. He's one of those people that absolutely categorically knows what's right in his mind, he knows exactly what he thinks and what he believes in. I want that. I want to know. I don't want to be woolly and impressed by young, nice, unbumbling people in suits.

I want to care. I want to be passionate like I was about hating Jack McConnell. I knew I hated everything he said, it was easy, shout "you're an idiot!" at the TV a lot, object to every word he says. Easy. Why can't I hate the rest of them like that? I need to hate more, then I'd care more, then I'd know what I believed.